


Sleepless Night

by PixChuu22



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2263212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixChuu22/pseuds/PixChuu22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"john sleeping on the couch, when they have an argument, and being woken up by sherlock in the middle of the night, because he couldn’t fall asleep without the doctor by his side"</p><p>Inspired by a reblog from Tumblr user piningjohn: http://piningjohn.tumblr.com/post/96776583667/raggedydama-here-are-some-extremely-important</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eliane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliane/gifts).



Dr. John Watson rolled uncomfortably from his left side to his right, trying to find some position on the sitting room sofa that was comfortable enough that he could possibly fall asleep. It was exceptionally hard to drift off without the warmth of his consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, curled tight against him like an over-sized housecat. In the six months that they'd been in a relationship and sharing a bed, John had gotten quite used to the soft susurration of Sherlock's breath next to his ear and the pervading warmth of Sherlock's body against his side or chest as they dozed off.

It also would have been helpful to be able to try to fall asleep on a bed rather than on the sofa, but Sherlock had poured various acids over John's old mattress in the upstairs bedroom while John had been at the clinic seeing patients earlier in the day. Sherlock had been testing to see which of his collection of acids were strong enough to eat through fabric _and_ corrode springs and which weren't worth the effort of keeping in the flat anymore. 

John might not have minded so much if they'd _discussed_ it first, but Sherlock had a habit of doing whatever mad idea popped into his head the moment it occurred to him to try it. This meant that after they'd had a major row about Sherlock asking before destroying John's things and Sherlock perhaps not keeping caustic chemicals under the kitchen sink and John not taking things so personally, especially when the things were for _science_ , after all, John had been faced with the reality of either sleeping in their shared bed in what was once Sherlock's room on the main floor of 221B Baker Street... or, facing a long night on the usually very comfortable sofa in the sitting room. 

_'Worth it,'_ John thought, adjusting his position yet again and dragging the spare quilt up to his chin. _'If I'd tried to sleep next to Sherlock, he'd have taken it as my forgiving him, which I haven't done, and would probably end up dumping all my pants into a bleach bath tomorrow just to see what happens.'_

There were many things about life with Sherlock Holmes that John Watson had come to accept as a matter of course: violin at 2am; the fridge containing more human body parts than food; tetchy silences; sulks on the sofa; boredom causing Sherlock to become more caustic than the acids he kept under the kitchen sink; cuddles at the most inconvenient times; confessions of love that sounded more like threats of eventual doom; but John could not - _could not_ \- get used to the cavalier way Sherlock treated John's possessions. 

He might have been able to shrug off the mattress's destruction if Sherlock hadn't used one of John's favorite jumpers to put out a fire in the kitchen sink the week before. In Sherlock's defense, John should not have left the jumper draped over one of the kitchen chairs, but since it had been Sherlock's fault the jumper had come off in the kitchen anyway, John felt that most of the blame rested solely on Sherlock's shoulders. Now he was out his black and grey striped jumper, unless he was all right wearing it out of the flat with great singed holes in it. 

John huffed, rolling once more to face the back of the sofa firmly, shutting his eyes on his simmering anger. He had to stop thinking about this. He was only making himself angrier and he was never going to get to sleep at this rate. 

He would think about the clinic. The cases had been the usual: colds, bunions, rashes... all the things that were the bread and butter of a GP's existence. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened at the clinic. Everything was in its place, just as it should be. 

Finally, after a few minutes lulled by the ordinariness and predictability of memories of the clinic, John drifted off to sleep. 

It was several hours later when John became sleepily aware of the feeling of Someone Else in the Room. At first, the feeling was just a vague hint of something out of the ordinary, and he was able to shrug it off, trying to drift back down into sleep. But as the seconds ticked by, the feeling of eyes watching him made his shoulders tighten and the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise. 

He didn't feel threatened, exactly, but it was making him feel unbearably creeped out. Until he could confirm that he was still alone in the sitting room, there was no way he'd be able to get back to sleep. 

With a groan, John rolled away from the sofa back to face into the shadowy sitting room, only giving a little start when he saw the tall, ruffled form standing just past the coffee table beside the sofa. 

"Sherlock? Is that you?" he asked, his voice low and rough from sleep. 

"It is," Sherlock confirmed, his own voice lower and even more rumbly than John's; but then, that was Sherlock's normal voice and not at all the growl that his voice became after several hours of sleep. _Had_ he slept? 

"Hang on," John said, shuffling up and stretching towards the lamp just past the arm of the sofa, flicking it on and wincing in the brightness. He turned to look back at Sherlock, eyes squinted against the sudden light. The tall man was dressed for bed with his blue silk dressing gown thrown over his too-large t-shirt and sweatpants. His dark curls were wildly ruffled and disarrayed but it didn't look as if he'd actually slept at all, merely tossed and turned in the bed. He was fiddling disconsolately with the belt of his dressing gown, eyes down on the coffee table as he refused to meet John's gaze. "What are you doing out here? What time is it?" 

"It's just past three," Sherlock confessed. 

"Why are you up?" 

"I haven't slept yet." 

"What? Why?" 

"I can't." The two words were infused with misery and John instantly knew that this night's "can't sleep" was different from Sherlock's usual "can't sleep." Usually, the pursuit of an answer kept him awake, pacing and thinking as he sorted through evidence and made connections in his amazing brain. But that never made him sound so miserable about missing sleep; if anything, staying awake in the pursuit of The Work always filled Sherlock with enthusiasm. 

John pushed the quilt off of his lap, holding his arms out towards the taller man. Sherlock's eyes ticked up from the coffee table, taking in John's mute invitation, and then he was moving quickly around the coffee table to climb onto the sofa next to John, draping himself across John's lap with his face pressing into John's chest as the shorter man wrapped his arms gently around Sherlock's shoulders. 

"What's keeping you up?" 

"This is the first time you've chosen not to share the bed with me since we began cosleeping," Sherlock said, his words slightly muffled as he spoke against John's undershirt. "At first, I had assumed this was simply a matter of you being too upset with me to sleep easily next to me, but as the night wore on, I started wondering if it was perhaps a sign that you'd grown tired of being in a relationship with me. That grew into a fear that you were planning to leave in the morning, and that made me remember that you recently put all of your jumpers into a large wooden chest that you bought specifically for the purpose of storing your jumpers and _that_ made me wonder if you were surreptitiously packing your belongings, knowing that I would immediately make the connection between cardboard boxes in the flat and -" 

"Stop. Sherlock, stop. You mad idiot," John said, but the words were fond and he stroked his palm gently down Sherlock's back as he said them. "I'm not leaving. I put my jumpers in that chest in the hopes that it would prevent any more of them becoming casualties to your experiments gone wrong. And I'm kipping on the sofa because I didn't want you thinking I'd forgiven you out of hand for destroying the mattress upstairs." 

"Then you're still cross with me?" Sherlock tipped his head slightly, looking up at John's face without pulling away from John's chest. 

"A little, yeah," John admitted. "We've talked before about how I feel when you destroy my things." 

"I know. I just thought that using the spare mattress, which neither of us has slept on in six months, would be less objectionable to you than if I'd poured acids over the bed we sleep in every night." 

"Ah... yeah, that was definitely a better choice. And maybe if you'd _talked_ with me about it, I wouldn't have minded so much." John leaned down, pressing a kiss to the one high cheekbone he could get to, taking a breath as his nose brushed against Sherlock's ruffled curls. "That's a lot of the problem, Sherlock: you do things without thinking of whether they'll upset me or not. You can't just forge ahead without thinking of me." 

"John, that's ridiculous," Sherlock said, pushing himself away from John's chest slightly, bracing his hands on John's thighs as he met John's eyes openly, his brows drawn down slightly. "I _always_ think of you. It's honestly quite distracting. Even when I'm trying to concentrate on a case, thoughts of you are continuously intruding. You have become the one constant in my head at all times, an undercurrent that weaves through every other thing that passes through my mind." 

John smiled faintly, unwinding one arm from behind Sherlock to gently draw his knuckles down the side of Sherlock's face. "Okay, I see what you're saying. But when you're thinking of me, do you ever stop to wonder if what you're about to do will upset me or not?" 

"Not really," Sherlock admitted, pressing his lips together. 

" _That's_ the problem," John said. "Thinking of me is great; I'm glad you do. It's sweet, really. But you need to consider if the actions you're planning to undertake will upset me or not. This would help in _so_ many situations." 

"Like preventing me from using your jumper to put out a fire in the kitchen sink?" Sherlock offered. 

"Or stopping you running after an armed criminal and leaving me behind," John said, drawing his thumb across Sherlock's lips, pausing for a moment to draw feathery strokes across the cupid's bow in his top lip. 

"Mmm," Sherlock rumbled, his eyelids growing heavy. He nipped at John's thumb, drawing it into his mouth for a moment to roll his tongue across it. John's breath came out in a shudder and the arm still around Sherlock's shoulders tightened. 

"All right, I'm glad we talked this over," John said, his voice slightly unsteady as he slid his thumb from Sherlock's mouth. "Consider this row sorted." 

"Does that mean you'll be coming to bed?" Sherlock asked, staring at John expectantly. His pupils were slowly eclipsing the pale blue-green of his irises as John threaded his free hand through Sherlock's curls, tugging at them gently in the way he knew Sherlock enjoyed. 

"Oh, yeah. I'll be coming, all right." 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so very much for reading this fic. If you haven't yet, please take a moment to leave Kudos (and, if you are reading this Note at the very end, I assume you enjoyed it enough to WANT to leave Kudos). Comments are my addiction; I love to chat. Don't hesitate to ask questions or just say how much you enjoyed reading.
> 
> You can follow my Tumblr for updates and random writerly musings plus reblogs of Johnlock theories and metas that catch my attention: pixchuu221b.tumblr.com
> 
> See you in the next fanfic.


End file.
